How I am prepping my garden for Winter! DIY Raised Bed Garden Hoops

My precious husband who is always helping me in the garden on projects.

Cold temperatures are approaching central Texas, and I've dedicated a lot of time and money to my garden this year, so I'm trying to protect what has grown so far. Recently, temperatures have been significantly warmer, providing an advantage for the continued growth of my fall garden. Everything is thriving, and I'm still gathering substantial harvests of herbs and greens every day. I aim to keep harvesting throughout the winter, so here's what I'm doing!

• Herbs that take years to grow and mature are on my top list of protecting - Rosemary, Lemon Thyme, Fennel, Sage, Lavender will all be covered with buckets and dirt pushed up around them to keep them insulated.

• In the picture above my husband is installing the raised bed garden hoops over 2 of tgreens beds that have cabbage, kale, broccoli, lettuce, brussles sprouts, sugar snap peas and a few herbs also. I'll explain exactly what we did to DIY the garden hoops below.

• I moved in all of my potted plants, ferns, aloe and other patio plants into Rubys insulated playhouse - it has electrical so I will probably turn on a heater in there to keep those warm.

• I am harvesting as much as I can daily to dehydrate herbs, just incase anything doesnt make it through this cold spell I have plenty resereved and stocked to get us through winter!

Making good use of the playhouse since I dont have a greenhouse anymore!

Raised Bed Garden Hoops -

Step 1 - Cut pieces of plumbing pex to 8ft in length (these were left over from our guesthouse project and were for cold & hot water lines so they come in blue and red - I just spray painted them black to match.)

Step 2 - Mount on your brackets to the inside of your beds.

Step 3 - Bend and install your pex piping. I buried and pushed mine a little into the soil for extra strength too.

Step 4 - Drape your frost protection cloth over and cut to the lenght you need. One of these covers was long enough for 2 of my beds that are 6ft long.

Step 5 - Using a staple gun, staple the fabric to the sides of the garden beds.

Not the cutest aesthetically, but super functional. When I need to harvest or check on the plants I just unstaple a side and then restaple.

Hopefully these tricks and tips are helpful! Happy New Year!

-Kaylee